The Probability Broach

Popping Pills With The Romans

http://ancientandmedievalmayhem.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/popping-pills-with-romans.html 

I was recently reading a book (the historical fiction, Conspiracies of Rome by Richard Blake if you were to wonder) and early on in the book there were a few references to pills. Of the medicinal kind. ‘Buying pills from the Apothecary’. ’ Pills rattling in a metal pill box’.

 

This got me to thinking about pills in Ancient Rome. I had not come across any reference to them in an early Roman setting before, not in non fiction and not in fiction.  That is not to say that there are none, just none that I have come across or remember. And, as is the way with me when I sense there is something new for me to learn about periods of history that interest me, my mind was awash with questions.

Conspiracies of Rome: Another Review

Since Mr Blake is notoriously disinclined to blow his own trumpet and bang his own drum, I feel a compelling obligation to do so for him. As chance may have it, you can buy any of his books with just two clicks by following the links from the right sidebar of this Blog. SIG

Blood of Alexandria: Another Fine Review

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2ACV48DBT77OV/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0340951176&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

This is the 3rd Aelric novel. It is like the first two with lots of plot twists and buckets of blood but with more of both. Its a fine story. (spoiler alert) One thing I want to bring up is that our hero makes a momentious decision towards the end. As readers know, he is what we would call a secular humanist and it one of his goals to save civilization or at least the Empire of the Romans. He is horrified by what absolutely has to be done to accomplish this. Is humanity worth saving? Aelic finds the detritus of one who answered this question in their time. They found keys to a door which just keeps on opening for our race. But he in his time decided man was not ready for this key. Aelric could turn that key and revive this empire of unjust taxation, pointless violence, God’s vicegerent on earth and white marble. Yes he decides to carry on with his goal but also leave the key for others to find. He knows that humanity with the power of knowledge is not worth saving without freedom for all– a job for many of our little lifetimes to fulfill and renew.

Richard Blake: Review of “Ghost of Athens”

Note: Mr Blake’s Ghosts of Athens is out in paperback on the 25th April. Place your orders now to avoid disappointment!

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Written, February 23, 2013 By David S Richards – See all my reviews   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?) This review is from: The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric) (Kindle Edition) Richard Blake continues his high standard of detail and storyline with his latest book. I recommend it to anyone interested in the period. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse | Permalink Comment Comment   5.0 out of 5 stars Another Incredible Work By Blake, February 5, 2013 By Don Sproat (Orlando, Florida United States) – See all my reviews   Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?) This review is from: The Ghosts of Athens (Aelric) (Paperback) The author’s fifth book in the series continued to amaze and delight this reader and I cannot wait for the next installment! His main and supporting characters are wonderful and so well developed over this long a series that they are like old friends. Of course the same action, intrigue, and naughtiness permeate this book as in the first four. I encourage all persons interested in Roman Empire Era fiction to read the entire series. Kindle readers will be happy that the “Aleric” books are available in that format.

Richard Blake: A Brief Introduction

http://richardblake.me.uk/node/54

A Brief and Rambling Advertisement
for the Works of Richard Blake

Oh dear, I suddenly feel just as I always do when I reach the “horrid page” of a job application form. You’ve given all the easy information – date of birth, qualifications, previous experience, and so forth. You now have a whole sheet of A4 on which you need to explain why the job should be yours. The horridest of horrid pages even contain the words “Continue on a separate sheet if necessary.” There’s no point shouting “Haven’t I said enough already to show whether I can do the bloody job?” No point at all. You’ve a readership of dead-eyed human resource managers, and they won’t even consider having you round for interview until you’ve revealed your childhood ambition to work in whatever position is being advertised.

Fact, fiction and historical novels
Richard Blake
Published in The New Nation (Bangladesh),
2nd December 2012

If you describe anything as “the worst thing that can happen,” it probably isn’t. But one of the worst things that can happen to an historical novelist is to have someone creep up with a smirk on his face, and say that you got a fact wrong. For me, it’s worse than being told the novel is useless. I’ve always sheltered from general criticism behind an impenetrable wall of vanity. I’m a genius. Anyone who says otherwise can only be intellectually or morally defective. Tell me, though, I’ve got my facts wrong, and I may run screaming from the room.

Fact and Fiction: The Trouble with Historical Novels

Fact and Fiction: The Trouble with Historical Novels
by Richard Blake

If you describe anything as “the worst thing that can happen,” it probably isn’t. Whatever you care to imagine, there’s usually something worse. But one of the worst things that can happen to an historical novelist is to have someone creep up to you with a smirk on his face, and tell you that some fact in your latest masterpiece is bad history. For me, it’s certainly worse than just being told the novel is useless. I’ve always been sheltered from general criticism behind an impenetrable wall of vanity. I’m a genius. Anyone who says otherwise can only be intellectually or morally defective. Tell me, though, I’ve got my facts wrong, and I may run screaming from the room.

Nice Review of The Churchill Memorandum

http://bellagerens.com/2011/03/03/review-the-churchill-memorandum/#comments

http://www.amazon.com/The-Churchill-Memorandum-Sean-Gabb/dp/1446722570/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance and prolific author and commentator on British politics and society, has written a novel of mayhem, adventure, and alternate history: The Churchill Memorandum.

I don’t know Sean Gabb personally, but I have read other works on his recommendation (notably those of Richard Blake), so when the review copy of his novel arrived, I dove into it with great anticipation and devoured it in one afternoon, taking assiduous notes between incredulous outbursts of ‘He just… did he really just do that? WTF?’ Anyone who has read the novel will probably recognise this frequent reaction.

Another One from Mr Blake

Sword of Damascus by Richard Blake Published by Hodder & Stoughton Paperback Edition: 16th February 2012 432pp, £7.99 Kindle Version  £6.99 ISBN: 978-1444709681

Richard Blake’s novel The Sword of Damascus, has now been published in paperback by Hodder & Stoughton. His earlier novels have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Slovak and Complex Chinese. This is the fourth in his series of critically-acclaimed and internationally best-selling historical thrillers.

Set in 687 AD, Sword of Damascus takes place against the life or death struggle of the Byzantine Empire against the first and greatest expansion of Islam. Expelled, after nearly a thousand years, from Syria, Egypt and increasingly from North Africa, the formerly dominant power of the Mediterranean world has been pushed further and further back – even to the very walls of its capital, Constantinople.

Everyone knows that Europe owes two debts to Greece – for the victories at Marathon and Salamis that turned back the Persians. But who now remembers our third debt – to the supposedly decadent Byzantines? For they do save themselves from utter defeat, and they buy time for the rest of Europe. Almost at the last moment, they come up with Greek Fire, a mysterious liquid – or is it a gas? – that turns back the Islamic advance and restores Byzantine control of the seas.

Yes, without this “miracle weapon,” Constantinople would have fallen in the 7th century, rather than the 15th, and the new barbarian kingdoms of Europe would have gone down one by one before the unstoppable cry of Allah al akbar! But for Greek Fire, Edward Gibbon’s famous surmise would have become the truth:

“…the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.”

But what importance has all this to old Aelric, who writes his memoirs and waits patiently for death in the remote wastes of northern England? Little does he expect a double siege of his monastery, a kidnapping, a near-fatal chase through the Mediterranean, and a confrontation at the end of this that will settle the future of mankind. Will age have robbed Aelric of his charm, his intelligence, his resourcefulness, or of his talent for cold and homicidal duplicity?

Comments on Richard Blake’s Earlier Novels
‘Vivid characters, devious plotting and buckets of gore are enhanced by his unfamiliar choice of period. Nasty, fun and educational.’ Daily Telegraph
‘He knows how to deliver a fast-paced story and his grasp of the period is impressively detailed’ Mail on Sunday
‘A rollicking and raunchy read . . . Anyone who enjoys their history with large dollops of action, sex, intrigue and, above all, fun will absolutely love this novel.’ Historical Novels Review
‘Fascinating to read, very well written, an intriguing plot and I enjoyed it very much.’ Derek Jacobi, star of I Claudius and Gladiator

Read Chapter One

For review copies, contact Eleni Lawrence at Hodder & Stoughton.

Richard Blake is available for interview.

Disney’s Lucasfilm Buyout: Fighting Power with Power

by Kevin Carson
http://c4ss.org/content/13844

Note: Mr Blake, of course, would be delighted if Disney took an interest in his novels. Doubtless, the sex and violence and bad language with which they are replete would need to be replaced with uplifting songs and more than a touch of Moronican sentimentality. The somewhat nasty ending of Ghosts of Athens might also need to be toned down. But even seeing a few of the characters turned into talking animals would be a price worth paying for the translation to the big screen.

And this is where Mr Blake parts company from Kevin Carson. Mr Blake will defend his copyrights to the death, and will cheer on any hard-faced politician who assists in the necessary lock down. What else, after all, are nuclear weapons and lunatic neo-conservatives for if not to protect the royalties of critically-acclaimed and best selling historical novelists? SIG

Richard Blake Reviews “Sword of Marathon” by Jack England

Review Article by Richard Blake
(September 2012)

Sword of Marathon
By Jack England
Published August 2012, £7.99 pb, £2.99 Kindle
ISBN: 978 14781

The hero of this novel is an Englishman of great intelligence and beauty who settles in Greece. He begins telling his story in extreme old age, and, though aged, nearly has to kill someone in the first chapter. Much of the novel takes place in Athens. However, anyone who thinks the author has been influenced by my own Ghosts of Athens will be mistaken.

Jack told me he was writing Sword of Marathon in May 2011, when we were both attending a conference in Bodrum. I had just finished Ghosts of Athens, though it would not be published until August 2012. By then, Jack had finished Sword of Marathon, and was working on a sequel. There is a similarity between our novels, but I do swear that neither of us could have had any influence on the other. This really is one of those times when great minds have thought alike.

The story begins when Luke and his brother Hal are on a trading mission and are captured by nomadic and more than usually demented barbarians. Through a series of exciting and well-paced adventures, they arrive in Athens in 490, just when Darius of Persia has finally decided to have his revenge on a city that has not only resisted his invitation to accept him as overlord, but has consistently made trouble along the western fringes of the greatest empire that has existed.

What is “Wireless tele-Vision” for? Discuss.

David Davis

[late edit...] [ I have suddenly wondered to myself what it's for, given that the global % penetration of small handheld (or not much larger) devices that can access news, comment, blogs and the opinions of millions, is approaching a majority. ]

One the one hand, the British Political EnemyClass has created what it seems to be admitting is a monster - this says “ban television for the under-threes” (or words to that effect.) Yet on the other hand a modern repressive police state would be a more difficult one in which to manage thought-control, regulate the opinions of, and generally farm for eliciting the “correct public responses” without this machinery. I have drafted a few of my own thoughts, rather fast this morning, in response to a typical Daily Mail mob-hysteria-inducing breakfast-article.

Of course, an invented device can’t be uninvented. The Wireless Tele-vision [WT] (and quickly also with post-receive injected sound subcarrier) was a marvellous development of the pure Sound-wireless, but like all technologies it’s been stolen and corrupted, Morgoth-style, by governments for their own purposes.

In the British State’s case,  WT’s purpose was to anaesthatize and render uncurious “The Masses”, over decades so nobody would notice except

The Oaths and Vows That Bind Our Society Together

The Oaths and Vows That Bind Our Society Together
David J. Webb

Legal Notes No. 53

ISBN 9781856376563
ISSN 0267-7083 (print)
ISSN 2042-258X (online)

An occasional publication of the Libertarian Alliance,
Suite 35, 2 Lansdowne Row, Mayfair, London W1J 6HL

© 2012: Libertarian Alliance; David Webb

 

David Webb studied Chinese and Russian at Leeds University, where he was involved in Marxist politics.  He has since become a conservative writer, contributing to The Salisbury Review and Right Now!, and more recently contributing extensively to the Libertarian Alliance.  He lived for four years in China (Tianjin, Kunming and Chengdu) and now writes freelance on Chinese politics and economics.  He is also a student of the Cork dialect of Irish and runs the Cork Irish website at http://www.corkirish.com.  This essay is a slightly revised version of one that first appeared in the August 2012 issue of The Individual, the journal of the Society for Individual Freedom (www.individualist.org.uk).

FOR LIFE, LIBERTY AND PROPERTY!

 

The purpose of oaths

The penchant for discussion of the Queen’s Coronation Oath on conservative websites, and also the habit of the ‘Freemen on the Land’ of asking to see judicial oaths of office, have recently reminded me of the Christian basis of our Anglo-Saxon civilisation.  Our constitution is held together by a series of oaths, oaths that mean something to people because they are solemn vows in the sight of God and before the people of this country to perform various duties.  I am not sure how seriously an oath can be regarded in the days when religion is scoffed at.  It may be that conservatives could still favour the retention of unshakeable, unshirkable and unretractable vows, regardless of any views on the existence of a Supreme Being, seeing such oaths as a foundation stone of our civilisation.  Nevertheless, it is clear that most people who make oaths today are not expecting to have to fulfil them and break them with impunity.  Is it any wonder that the fabric of our society has become less secure?

Nice Review of Richard Blake’s Συνωμοσίες στη Ρώμη

http://www.palo.gr/cluster/articles/eidhseis-kypros/780/?clid=2822522

Στη Ρώμη, στις αρχές του 7ου αιώνα, μας μεταφέρει το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο και μας δείχνει τα πρώτα βήματα του Αλάριχου στην ανέλιξή του στην εκκλησιαστική ιστορία. Πρόκειται σαφέστατα για μια εγκληματική φυσιογνωμία, η οποία βαρύνεται για πολλά εγκλήματα που έκαναν οι χριστιανοί σε βάρος των Εθνικών και στο βιβλίο αυτό, το οποίο αποτελεί το πρώτο μέρος μιας τριλογίας, έχουμε την ευκαιρία να τον δούμε στα πρώτα του βήματα στη Ρώμη. Πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο αρκετά διαφωτιστικό, το οποίο μας δίνει αρκετά ανάγλυφα το νεανικό χαρακτήρα ενός κοινού εγκληματία και με αρκετά καλή πλοκή. Εκείνο το οποίο με ξένισε είναι διάφοροι νεολογισμοί, οι οποίοι δεν ταιριάζουν με τη γλώσσα της εποχής και δεν ξέρω εάν υπάρχουν στο πρωτότυπο ή οφείλονται στη μετάφραση.

Ghosts of Athens, Reviewed by The Historical Novels Society

Find & buy on

Athens of 612 AD is a decadent and vulnerable city, threatened by starving barbarian tribes. Richard Blake’s protagonist, Aelric, a senator of the Roman Empire of British origin, is ordered to divert his galley to the threatened city. He finds an explosive religious dispute underway, an unexplained corpse and the possibility of pagan ritual killing. The Ghosts of Athens is steeped in horror, mystery, intrigue and suspicion in a place that is a ghost of its glorious former self. Set in a little-explored period of history which Blake knows thoroughly, he crafts a suspenseful and fascinating historical thriller, in which it is difficult to discern who the villains really are.

Chapter One, Ghosts of Athens by Richard Blake

Buy your copies here!

Chapter One: Canterbury, Friday, 3^rd April 688

The present chapter in my story begins five days ago. Oh, Jarrow to Canterbury is a three hundred mile journey, and you don’t cover much of that in five days. But I’m not starting from the day we set out from the monastery, with everyone waving us off and holding up his hands in prayer for our safety. Nor am I counting our interminable, though generally smooth, progress along the old military road, nor the changes of guard as we passed from one kingdom to another. I mention five days because it was then that I came, with young Brother Jeremy, to the silent ruins of what had, in the old days, been London, and prepared to step onto the bridge across the Thames.

New Historical Novel by Libertarian (not Richard Blake!)

Very Pleased Indeed!

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1R05CMKELT2GU/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=034095115X&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

Terror of Constantinople

There are some great reviews on these pages that provide enough insight to the
historical settings and general plot of the book, so I will restrict myself to
more particular observations.

First and foremost for me was the hugely entertaining narrative that Blake presents. The book is written in the first person so we hear all of the events through the commentaries of the acerbic, witty & cynical Aelric. He has a refreshingly blunt view of life and describes his circumstances and adventures accordingly. For the most part his comments and conversations are pricelessly funny. I do wish though that the author had been a little more careful to keep his descriptions in 7th. Century speak. His references to pregnancy as “putting her up the duff”, going to sleep as “crashing out” and, perhaps most heinous to me, Aelric asks his attendants on a couple of occasions to “bring a takeaway”. Hope it wasn’t Pizza Hutt!

Mr Blake is Currently Feeling Pleased with Himself!

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1JQ4FNDE9YQT7/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B006CDEUAU&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

You are there in Rome in the early 600′s. Stop in for dinner at the genteel poverty of inbred Senator so and so, the stinky sewer outside is blocked up from decades of neglect, the bread is stamped with the logo of Pope Boniface, the founder of this feast. Rome’s few thousand residents mostly depend on this bread dole. Across town the Panthion is being converted into a church. Incense is coming to town for this consecration.